Multi-Genre Author

How about another thriller? I’ve been doing a lot of those lately, haven’t I. All for good reasons, as I’ve shared before. This one, however, isn’t quite a thriller. It’s more a suspense. There’s also a romantic element to it, which sweetens it up a bit. Would you like to know more about this book? Let me share!

Not What She Seems

By: Victorine E. Lieske

Steven Ashton, a billionaire from New York, and Emily Grant, on the run from the law…and when they meet he can’t help falling for her. What he doesn’t know is that interfering in her life will put his own life in danger.

When billionaire Steven Ashton couldn’t stand his high society social life anymore, he left the stress of New York on a vacation for his soul. The need to meet real down to earth people led him to a small Nebraska town. He didn’t want to lie about who he was, but he couldn’t exactly tell them the truth.

Emily could have easily fallen in love with Steven, under different circumstances, but her past was catching up with her and she needed a new life. If the authorities found out about her, she could lose the one thing that meant everything, her four year old son.

I have read other books by Victorine E. Lieske before. I figured this one would be a good one to try. After all, she’s great with her romance novels! So how does she do with suspense? Let’s find out. I’ll first share what I liked.

Not What She Seems is very well-written. I thought the storyline was enjoyable and easy to follow. I love that it’s a clean novel. Many books in this genre tend to be even just a slightly bit dirty. This one wasn’t whatsoever. So that’s a huge plus. Especially for those younger people who like to read suspense. Another huge plus was that you never find out the culprit until the very end. I have to admit that it wasn’t someone I had suspected so kudos to Victorine for keeping it a mystery!

Was there anything I didn’t like? There were a couple of things. The first was that toward the end, I had to reread some parts just to make sure I was following right. Overall, the book is very easy to follow and makes tons of sense. There was just a few parts at the end where I had to recheck. Another downfall is that much of the story was predictable. Not so much the biggest part of the book, but much of the rest was. Lastly, I wasn’t feeling the romance aspect of the story at all. It was cute, but didn’t do anything for me.

All in all, I rated this four stars! If you go to the Amazon page for this novel, which I have the link just below, you’ll see that it has tons of reviews all in favor of this story. It’s also a New York Times Bestseller so that says something, right? Okay. Now that I said my piece, go check it out!

I know it’s a little late in the year to be talking about pumpkins. After all, Christmas is just one week from today, and who in the world has pumpkins left!?! Now is the time for Christmas trees, right? But a thought hit me on something we did back in October and so I thought now was a good a time as any to share it.

Every year there is a church not far from us that does what is called a Pumpkin Walk. Basically, it’s where you can walk through this little trail in the woods owned by this church, and all along the way there are pumpkins that have been carved. This was our third year going, and we have never been disappointed. There are tons and tons of pumpkins, with a variety of different carvings, all way better than anything I could ever do. To give you some examples, here are some pictures from that night:

Some neat stuff, right? And there was a lot more of that!

Anyway, this is the thought that hit me, and I guess it could go one of two ways. First is, we can be like a pumpkin. Life’s failures and triumphs can carve us. Sometimes it might make us stronger, our carving beautiful. Sometimes it takes a toll on us and the carving doesn’t come out so well. Either way, we are all carved into something. What is your something?

Or, secondly, yet somewhat the same, we can carve out our lives or paths into who we want to be, and what we want to do, or where we want to go. We can choose to be good, and kind, and loving. Or rude, controlling, selfish. We can work our hardest or measly get through. We can choose living life to the fullest or in a slump. How will you carve your ‘pumpkin’?

Hopefully some of that makes some kind of sense. It hit me sort of fast and I tried writing it the way I thought about it. That doesn’t always work, lol, but I tried. Even if you get nothing out of that, look at those pumpkins!! Aren’t they gorgeous!!

I’m in the process of writing my first thriller novel, which I’m totally excited about. To do so, I want to prepare myself the best way possible. How do I do that? By reading thriller novels, of course! My sister recommended one, and upon reading the book’s blurb, I was hooked, and wanted to get my hands on a copy pronto. Thank goodness for libraries! (I say that because a book by a best-selling author costs more than I’m willing to spend right now.)

Let me first share with you a little bit about the book, including the cover and blurb, and then I’ll go into what my thoughts are.

Velocity

By Dean Koontz

If you don’t take this note to the police . . . I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher. . . . If you do . . . I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have six hours to decide. The choice is yours.

The typewritten note under his windshield seems like just a sick joke. But in less than twenty-four hours, Billy Wiles, an ordinary, hardworking guy, is about to see his life take on the speed of a nightmare. Because a young blond schoolteacher is murdered—and now Billy has another note. And another deadline. This time he knows it’s no joke. He’s racing a killer faster than evil itself. And Billy must accept his terrifying challenge: The choice is yours.

Think fast. Fear never slows down. . . .

Sound goods, right? It did to me! And after reading it, I thought that it was amazing. That’s why I rated it four stars! Let me elaborate.

Dean Koontz did a wonderful job describing the story. There was never a dull moment. I thought it all came together rather nicely. Throughout, I was left wondering who could be the culprit. I also think that the whole premise is crazy! With these hard choices, there’s no way I could make a decision. What a creative thinker Mr. Koontz is. I applaud him for that.

If I liked it so much, why just four stars? Why not a perfect five? There are three reasons why I took this book off from the perfect throne:

Some descriptions were too many, in my opinion. I thought there was information we just didn’t need.

I felt the ending was too easy. Once we figure out things and the victim works his way to victory, it all just goes too quickly. There was barely a fight.

I also didn’t like how the character was too “at ease” with everything. There is no way a person, going through what this character did, would handle it the way he did.

But overall, I liked the book. I’m glad my sister recommended it. I would recommend it as well. To warn you, though, it isn’t clean. But that shouldn’t really come as a surprise, seeing as it’s Dean Koontz and all.

Here is the link to the book’s Amazon page for you to check it out some more:

A few weeks ago, there tended to be a theme at my house. This isn’t something we planned for, and really I never noticed it until recently as I thought back on it. The theme was:

SALSA

Why was this the theme for the week? Let me explain.

First of all, on a Wednesday night, the local library hosted free salsa dancing lessons. For someone who has been wanting to do dance lessons for a long time, this was the time to jump on the opportunity. Not only did I get my dance lessons, but they were free, and the type of dance was fun! The best part of it all was that my husband, who wants nothing to do with dancing, was more than willing to appease me. He joined in on the fun, and I would say he was glad to have had the opportunity to learn something new and do something different. For the record, I would do salsa dancing again. I would also try any other dance lessons.

Second of all, we had a lot of tomatoes from our garden that needed to be used up. We have never made homemade salsa before so we had to learn fast. We searched for a recipe that looked good and even doctored it up a bit. After trying it, there are things I would change. It turned out way too watery. Probably because we chopped those tomatoes up to smithereens. Regardless, there are things I’d omit or change all together.

These two things don’t seem worthy of calling “salsa” a theme. But here’s why I would say it was. These were two things we do not typically do. They were new. They were different. They both happened within like two day’s time. It stood out. When something stands out, I can easily see it become a theme. Plus, when the root word of both things is the same, it’s obviously a theme, lol!

Have you had themes you’ve noticed show up in your days, weeks, months, or maybe even years? Were they intentional or by total coincidence?

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